Tilting at Windmills

From its very conception, the project seemed headed for nowhere. Screen writer Dale Wasserman had turned out a television play, I, Don Quixote, a two-story project that tried to tell of Cervantes and Don Quixote at the same time. Wasserman decided that it was a failure "because it aimed a little too high and wide for the medium." So he tried to turn it into a play, then a musical. By 1962 he had fashioned an interesting if offbeat script dealing with Cervantes' windmill-tilting life. And tilting a little himself, he started collaborating with a couple of unknowns, Songwriter Mitch Leigh and Lyricist Joe Darion. Albert Marre (Kismet, Milk and Honey) agreed to direct; Singer Joan Diener and Perennial Leading Man Richard Kiley (Redhead, No Strings) signed on as leads.

Out of town, the critics thought Man of La Mancha was too good to live. One reviewer warned: "If you want to lose $400,000, invest here." Snuffled another: "It's absolutely beautiful. What a shame it won't run." When La Mancha opened in a Greenwich Village theater, some New York critics seemed to agree. One called it "vulgar," another said that the show "ought to be 31 centuries distant from Broadway instead of merely 40 blocks away." But others called it "inspired," "a triumph," and "a dream of a musical." For six weeks, the show lived a word-of-mouth existence, until at last it caught on. Now, five months later, it has copped virtually every award the theater has to offer: five Tonys, the New York Drama Critics Circle prize and the Outer Circle Award.

Mancha's surprise success confounds even its most fanatical fans. At least some of that success, in an era of Dollys and Mames, comes from the deliberate absence of panache and patina. But most of the musical's appeal is purely emotional. The artless show matches the naive Quixote, a man who is only truly alive when he dreams; it extols virtues such as honesty and courage with a stern innocence that makes people believe in them. There are only 19 actors in the musical and no chorus line, but there is a persistent illusion of greatness and profundity about it all. And in the theater, it is illusion that people pay--and pay well--to see.

"The absurd thing is," says Director Marre, "that when you catch one like this it's not worth thousands, it's worth millions. Ridiculous, isn't it? You might even say quixotic."

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